Chancellor Allison’s remarks. The Chancellor has requested an opportunity to speak for about ten minutes on strengthening shared governance.

Floor will be opened for nominations for Vice President of the Senate for next year, due to a resignation. The Executive Committee brings the nomination of Vincci Kwong. Election will be held at the close of nominations.

General Education. Voting to formally establish the position of Director of General Education, in hopes that Academic Affairs can call for applications almost immediately, with a goal of having the new director in place as soon as July 1. Due to a change of plans in Academic Affairs, a new draft is not yet available. In light of section V.3.A.3 of the Constitution, we have before us the proposal from the March meeting, then, and a vote: For the establishment of a new position of Director of General Education, to be held by a member of the faculty, with revisions to the General Education Task Force’s March position description to be carried out by Academic Affairs and the Executive Committee working in consultation with the Senate’s General Education Committee.

General Education Task Force. The Task Force has requested about ten minutes to review the work they have carried out over the last two years and their plans for completing the work in the fall semester.*

All spring semester meetings start at 1:30 pm in DW 1001. The March meeting will be a special extended meeting used largely to address proposed changes to General Education. There will be light refreshments and a ten-minute break, and the meeting will end no later than 3:30–sooner, if possible.

Call to order.

Approval of minutes for January and February.

Elected and appointed offices and committees.

Next stage in updating and moving the Constitution to the new website.

Remarks from the President of the Senate.

The proposed position of Director of General Education, including how it fits with the Constitutional charge for the Senate’s General Education committee. The position draft will be posted shortly. **see note below.

General Education issues from the remaining proposals from the Task Force. This conversation will given almost the entirety of the second hour of the meeting, which will end at 3:30 or sooner rather than the usual 3:00 pm time.

Announcements.

**Break. As proposed in the February meeting, the bulk of the March meeting will be devoted to General Education. At approximately this point in the meeting, a break with light refreshments, provided by members of the Executive Committee, will take place, ten minutes in duration.

Update on the Senate motion in favor of an affordable, high quality child care facility on campus.

Nominations for leadership positions in the Senate for next year and for the elected committees. See the slate offered to us by the nominating committee. Nominations can be made from the floor too, though it is best if the person being nominated has been consulted in advance.

General Education Task Force update on the open forum meetings and other progress.

Discussion on the kinds of information faculty need in order to make thoughtful decisions about an upcoming general education vote. The possibility of dividing the question. The likely need for a strong director/committee combination going forward no matter what general education program is in place.

The plan for an hour in the March Senate meeting devoted to the general education questions.

President’s remarks. a) The “Best Practices” document for promotion and tenure on the regional campuses. b) Service in the PTR process for clinical ranks. c) Other items.

For the February meeting, the Nominating Committee presents the following slate of candidates for the Senate roles and committees called for by the Constitution to be elected by the membership of the Senate. Further nominations can be made from the floor during the meeting. If you plan to make a nomination, please consult with the colleague you would like to nominate ahead of time, if possible.

Higher Learning Commission visit. Overview of the schedule and opportunities for participating. How to make the most of these opportunities.

Carnegie Task Force. Making the most of faculty annual reports.

General Education Task Force. Questions that can guide unit-level conversations going toward an eventual vote on general education. Opportunities needed for discussion to prepare for a campus decision on general education.

Report and motion on childcare from the Faculty Working Group on Childcare at IUSB. Report in the document area below. Motion: Be it resolved that: The Faculty affirms that​ ​campus-supported childcare​ ​is of great importance to the university community and that an affordable, high quality child care facility should be available to students, staff, and faculty​.

Report from the University Faculty Council meeting in November.

Moving the Senate Constitution and the Handbook to the web. Progress and a report on the votes from the last meeting.

Announcement from Associate Vice Chancellor Jann Joseph of Dr. Murli Nair as the new Faculty Program Associate for Online Education:

Dr. Murli Nair is an Associate Professor of Bioinformatics, with joint positions in the Biology and Computer Science/Informatics departments. Prior to joining IUSB in 2006, he was a scientist at the University of California San Diego Supercomputer Center. With his interdisciplinary background, he has taught introductory and advanced courses for both departments. Dr. Nair has introduced several new courses, including Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Genomics, Biology of Cancer and Introduction to Datamining. He regularly teaches online courses, and has developed and taught three of them – Biostatistics, Introduction to Data Mining and Genomics. He received funding to develop online courses from the Center for Online Education as well as SEED Grant for computer equipment. He recently received an NSF grant to procure a server for research and for teaching data intensive courses. Dr. Nair’s core research area is cancer genomics.

Constitutional amendments. a) Updating titles and other non-controversial changes to the Constitution as part of the transition to a new online format (links below), b) Adding item 2.2.C of faculty legislative authorities from the Constitution of the Indiana University Faculty verbatim to the list of faculty legislative authorities contained in V.2.a of the Constitution of the Academic Senate for IU South Bend: “Standards and procedures for creation, reorganization, merger, and elimination of academic programs and units.” This would become the ninth item in that list, with the intention of following this change with a consideration of existing IU policies for these kinds of changes, such as ACA-79.

Endorsement of the IUSB faculty statement on the teacher-scholar model (link below). Motion: “In response to a call for a position statement on the value of a “teacher-scholar model” of excellence, IUSB faculty drafted and revised this document and the Academic Senate endorses it today.​”

Update from the Carnegie Task Force (links below)

Update from the General Education Task Force

Update on the new summer bridge program for conditionally admitted students (link below)

The Committee on Teaching questioning the use of bar graph data in the campus’s PTR and awards process (link below)

The Facilities Management Committee’s update on the condition of Northside Hall during construction (link below)

Update on childcare from the Faculty Working Group on Childcare at IUSB (link below)

Teacher-Scholar Model document as drafted and revised through faculty conversations this semester. If you have not seen this document or its earlier version produced a few years ago by CLAS, please review it ahead of the meeting.

Carnegie Task Force slides. A brief Powerpoint deck introducing the definition of engaged campus that will advance the application for the Engaged Campus designation. See especially slides 4 and 5.

General Education Task Force. The short version of the three proposed new general education plans. The long version. As requested, the slides from their October presentation and the LEAP criteria for excellence. We will hear about the plans for the next several weeks rather than discussing the lengthy documents linked in this paragraph.

Committee on Teaching. Discussion of presentation of data in course evaluations, proposing that bar graphs be removed.

Facilities Management Committeereport on Northside Hall renovation and disarray during construction. A summary of the report will be presented and an opportunity for administrators to suggest a path forward.

Constitution of the Academic Senate, two proposed changes: a) Updating titles and other non-controversial changes to the Constitution as part of the transition to a new online format (links below), and b)Adding item 2.2.C of faculty legislative authorities from the Constitution of the Indiana University Faculty verbatim to the list of faculty legislative authorities contained in V.2.a of the Constitution of the Academic Senate for IU South Bend: “Standards and procedures for creation, reorganization, merger, and elimination of academic programs and units.” This would become the ninth item in that list, with the intention of following this change with a consideration of existing IU policies for these kinds of changes, such as ACA-79.

Update on the proposal to have a shared calendar among regional campuses and online programs

Update on the new faculty travel money process

Update on the Engaged Faculty Fellows Program

Update from the General Education Task Force

The Committee on Teaching discussion of the use of bar graph data in the campus’s PTR and awards process–statement below

Announcements (see below) and motion to adjourn

CERES motion. “The Senate supports the creation of a Center for Excellence in Research and Scholarship as described in the proposal presented to the Senate at the September 2017 meeting.”

Note from the Senate Committee on Teaching: “The Senate Committee on Teaching recommends that the tables and bar graphs be removed from the end-of-semester student course evaluations. These tables and graphs draw a direct comparison of said course and said instructor with the corresponding department, corresponding school, and also the whole campus. The committee feels that this information may be misleading, comparing faculty teaching first year to graduate, required to elective, etc. It could be difficult to identify a great teacher among a pool of great teachers. Overall, calculating the average of the ratings among all courses and/or among all instructors within a specific department or across different departments and divisions does not seem fair, especially since student course evaluations have become such an integral part of all applications for reappointment, promotion, tenure, and awards. It is also our concern that these visual effects may direct the reader’s eyes away from a careful reading of the students’ important comments.”

Nominees: Associate faculty members to serve as voting members of the Senate this year.

The PTR Committee will bring this document for discussion on Friday during the Senate meeting.

Senate PTR Committee Recommended Reappointment Dossier Guidelines

Preamble

The Faculty Senate PTR Committee is composed of faculty from various academic units on the IUSB campus; efforts are taken to represent as many units as possible on the Committee. The Faculty Senate PTR Committee decides reappointment cases regarding faculty from all of the academic units on the IUSB campus. Most of the academic units have very detailed guidelines on the content and number of tenure and promotion dossiers. However, a wide variation exists across academic units on the minimum recommended content and number of reappointment dossiers. In addition, Academic Affairs recently specified that they require only one reappointment dossier. The Faculty Senate PTR Committee believes that uniform minimum documentation in reappointment dossiers would enable the faculty in the various academic units to better represent themselves.

Recommendation

Therefore, the Senate PTR committee recommends the following minimum documentation to be included in reappointment dossiers.

For reappointments, a single hard copy of the dossier is required.

A current Curriculum Vita.

The latest available annual report – The Senate PTR Committee reviews the dossiers while the current annual reports are being prepared. Thus, the latest available annual report would generally be the one from the prior year.

The Dean and/or Chair’s evaluation of the latest available annual report.

Recommendations from all previous levels of review, using the standard reappointment form.

In case of a recommendation with reservations or a recommendation against reappointment at any level of review, include all previous reappointment forms and all previous annual evaluations.

These are the minimum documents recommended for the dossier; additional information might also be included.